CVE-2016-2776: Assertion Failure in buffer.c While Building Responses to a Specifically Constructed Request
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CVE-2016-2776: Assertion Failure in buffer.c While Building Responses to a Specifically Constructed Request

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Article Summary

CVE: CVE-2016-2776

Document version: 2.1

Posting date: 2016-09-27

Program impacted: BIND

Versions affected: 9.0.x -> 9.8.x, 9.9.0->9.9.9-P2, 9.9.3-S1->9.9.9-S3, 9.10.0->9.10.4-P2, 9.11.0a1->9.11.0rc1

Severity: High

Exploitable: Remotely

Description:

Testing by ISC has uncovered a critical error condition which can occur when a nameserver is constructing a response. A defect in the rendering of messages into packets can cause named to exit with an assertion failure in buffer.c while constructing a response to a query that meets certain criteria.

This assertion can be triggered even if the apparent source address isn't allowed to make queries (i.e. doesn't match allow-query).

Impact: All servers are vulnerable if they can receive request packets from any source.

CVSS Score: 7.8

CVSS Vector: (AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C)

For more information on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System and to obtain your specific environmental score please visit: http://nvd.nist.gov/cvss.cfm?calculator&adv&version=2&vector=(AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C).

Workarounds: No practical workarounds exist.

Active exploits:

A step-by-step breakdown of the issue has been published and working Metasploit code is available. Crashes have been reported that appear to be the result of active exploitation.

Solution: Upgrade to the patched release most closely related to your current version of BIND.  These can all be downloaded from https://www.isc.org/downloads.

  • BIND 9 version 9.9.9-P3
  • BIND 9 version 9.10.4-P3
  • BIND 9 version 9.11.0rc3

BIND 9 Supported Preview edition is a feature preview version of BIND provided exclusively to eligible ISC Support customers.

  • BIND 9 version 9.9.9-S5

Document Revision History: 1.0 Advance Notification, 14 September 2016
1.1 Added information about the Stable Preview release to versions affected; updated solution section to reflect replacing 9.11.0rc2 with 9.11.0rc3 and 9.9.9-S4 with 9.9.9-S5, 21 September 2016
2.0 Posting date changed and public disclosure, 27 September 2016
2.1 Updated 'Active exploits' section, 4 October 2016

Related Documents:

See our BIND 9 Security Vulnerability Matrix for a complete listing of security vulnerabilities and versions affected.

If you'd like more information on ISC Subscription Support and Advance Security Notifications, please visit https://www.isc.org/support/.

Do you still have questions? Questions regarding this advisory should go to security-officer@isc.orgTo report a new issue, please encrypt your message using security-officer@isc.org's PGP key which can be found here: https://www.isc.org/downloads/software-support-policy/openpgp-key/. If you are unable to use encrypted email, you may also report new issues at: https://www.isc.org/community/report-bug/.

Note:

ISC patches only currently supported versions. When possible we indicate EOL versions affected.  (For current information on which versions are actively supported, please see https://www.isc.org/downloads/). 

ISC Security Vulnerability Disclosure Policy:

Details of our current security advisory policy and practice can be found in the ISC Software Defect and Security Vulnerability Disclosure Policy.

This Knowledgebase article is the complete and official security advisory document.

Legal Disclaimer:

Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) is providing this notice on an "AS IS" basis. No warranty or guarantee of any kind is expressed in this notice and none should be implied. ISC expressly excludes and disclaims any warranties regarding this notice or materials referred to in this notice, including, without limitation, any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, absence of hidden defects, or of non-infringement. Your use or reliance on this notice or materials referred to in this notice is at your own risk. ISC may change this notice at any time.  A stand-alone copy or paraphrase of the text of this document that omits the document URL is an uncontrolled copy. Uncontrolled copies may lack important information, be out of date, or contain factual errors.